Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe

Read my disclaimer here.

The next church I visited was the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe (Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe). This is the cathedral for the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. This church was originally known as Sacred Heart Cathedral, but by the 60’s attendance had dwindled, and their bishop invited a local Hispanic congregation, Our Lady of Guadalupe, to combine with them. They have 5 services every morning, attended by 11,000 people.

           

The first thing I noticed was the overwhelming Hispanic presence in the service: it was roughly 90% Hispanic, 8% Caucasian, and just a few families that were Asian or Black. It was somewhat amusing to see the different socio-cultural background: most of the Hispanics sat very close together, but the whites all sat far apart from each other (myself included).

The leadership of the church reflected the Hispanic/Caucasian combination. The Rector was Hispanic, and spoke with such a thick accent that I only could understand perhaps one in five or ten words. He even pronounced “Jesus” as “Yaysoos Christ”. The Parochial Vicar was white and had an accent that sounded like he had come from the sticks of East Texas. They swapped back and forth while performing their duties, although the Rector was the one who performed the Mass.

The music at the service was distinctly Catholic sounding, but ironically was not as Gregorian sounding as the Episcopal music. This type of sound has started to appeal to me as I am becoming more used to. There is something very beautiful about it’s harmony and simplicity.

The homily was by no means an exegetical sermon, but was much closer than the Episcopal church’s was. It was over how to live out the Word in your daily life. It wasn’t half bad.

Overall, the service was very familiar to anyone who has been to Mass before. The architecture of the building was pretty, but the twenty million dollar belltower throws off the symmetry of the building. The one thing I really like about this church was the cross-racial-ness of it: I believe that this is what Christ had in mind for the church, especially if the racial ratio was a little bit more balanced.